March 30, 2001

Starting a research project

Well, we didn't start a research project, but it was the first meeting where we started to put short-term timelines together for who does what.

The Spencer Foundation, an organization that funds educational research, gave the University of South Florida money for two years to start three projects as part of a new consortium on educational research in Florida (or CERF, if you want to use an acronym). This afternoon, several of the researchers met (or phoned in) to discuss concrete steps at the moment.

This part—dividing up responsibilities—is a new experience for me. I've worked on research projects where I was the flunky and given responsibilities, and I've run my own research projects, generally just myself or where I give graduate students clearly delineated responsibilities. But being in a group of researchers, each of us with our own agenda and professional needs, and starting to work out what to do with limited time and resources, is going to be interesting.

One weakness of mine, as a researcher, is hiring research assistants and training them in a way that both gets the work done with a minimum of fuss and also respecting their needs as students. I'm reasonably sure I treat research assistants decently as human beings, but it's the judgment of what they can do and what they need training on that I'd love to figure out better. Fortunately, as I'm not the boss of this consortium, I get to see others do that.